The present invention relates to a device for applying delicate, controlled mechanical forces to living tissue, and more particularly, to tissues growing in culture so as to control the plane of cell division therein.
It is possible to remove cells from a plant using known aseptic techniques, and to provide the cells so removed with an artificial nutritional environment which meets their maintenance and growth requirements. Unfortunately, in removing these cells from their parent plant, the cells are removed from their natural mechanical environment which comprises subtle but coherent pressures of surrounding tissues.
Previously, control over the development of tissues growing in sterile culture has been achieved through chemical, nutritional or hormonal means. However, manipulation of the chemical, nutritional or hormonal environment cannot compensate for the lost mechanical environment mentioned above. Because plant tissues differ widely in their ability to reestablish this mechanical environment, some varieties are to generate the local conditions necessary for the initiation of true stems and roots in culture, whereas other varieties are not. While considerable time, effort and money have been expended on some more hopeful varieties, e.g., Biloxi soy-bean and Sugar maple, in attempts to control their behavior in cell culture, many others are considered hopeless, among them many woody plants, because they produce only disorganized masses of random cells in cultures.